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In case you missed it, about a week ago Dan Cathy, the president of the very popular fast food chain, said, "We are very much supportive of the family -- the biblical definition of the family unit." That comment started a firestorm.

The LBGT community began to try to convince people to boycott Chick-fil-A regardless of the fact that the popular chain doesn't discriminate against gays as employees or patrons. That doesn't seem to matter in this case. It appears as though they just want to punish someone for his protected free speech. They apparently convinced some in government to support the boycott. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said "Chick-fil-A does not represent Chicago values." I guess Chick-fil-A needs to have a few murders per day in their stores to meet his standard? Not sure what “Chicago values" are but, right now isn’t the time to make Chicago the standard for values.

For the first time in my life, today I visited a Chick-fil-A to show my support for Cathy's right to free speech, answering the call of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who had proclaimed today "Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day." I live in LA so, I was not expecting much in way of support but, I was not just surprised, I was blown away. The Chick-fil-A in Northridge, California, had a line that twisted throughout the parking lot. It was almost 100 degrees but, that didn't seem to deter anyone. They were peaceful and the demographic was wide ranging. Blacks, whites, teenagers, kids, Latinos and all other categories you could imagine. At this location there were no anti-Chick-fil-A protesters.

So, how was the chicken? Amazing! Now I know why people love this place. The store was run extremely well. Clean, polite and efficient. The staff brought water to those in line, they handed out umbrellas for protection from the sun and they served delicious food quickly. This has been replicated across the nation. This huge one day movement involving millions of supporters made their opinions heard and voted with their money and presence. It has been estimated that the chain will have booked almost $100 million in revenue or more just today.

When I returned home I turned on the news to see how this would be reported. NBC in Los Angeles chose to focus on the protesters. Not the ones supporting Chick-fil-A but, the ones protesting the supporters. The protesters were a tiny fraction compared to the supporters, yet the media focused 90% of their attention on those few. This does not represent the truth of the actual event. The meme from the anti-Chick-fil-A groups proclaim that opposition to gay marriage is anti-gay.

To make it worse, the fast food Wendy's chain tweeted " we proudly serve everyone" insinuating that Chick-fil-A doesn't serve everyone. They quickly deleted the tweet as they were corrected by thousands in the twitter sphere.

The issue simply isn't so simple. For thousands of years marriage has been defined by religion as between a man and a woman. In the past, couples were married by their church, not the state, up until people began requesting legal support from the state to define their separation or divorce. For most Christians, this has never been about equal rights but about attaching gay marriage to the definition defined by the bible. Christians get married before God and not the state. The state has laws that protect and grant couples' rights based on that marriage. I, nor most Christians I know, have never opposed gay couples having equal rights to heterosexual couples, they have only been opposed to the church being forced to redefine what it has recognized as marriage for thousands of years within the church.

Isn’t it time we be truthful about this debate? The manipulation about these sensitive issues within our media needs to stop if we are ever going to solve this very important and very sensitive issue. You can see by this picture I took, there were no protestors within my view. You be the judge.

Chick-Fil-A Northridge, Ca 8/1/12

Correction: Dan Cathy is the president and COO of Chick-fil-A. I previously wrote that he was the CEO.